This youngest generation has been bred for Fear. 9/11 happened in their earliest years. They grew up with high levels of security. You can’t park next to that building, the concrete bollards are protecting it from car bombs. We have metal detectors everywhere. Let’s practice a drill in case one of your school mates decides to come in and shoot the place up.
Now the HS proms and graduations, college graduations too, are all cancelled, because life is far too dangerous to have such milestone events in your life.
Psychologically, I think all lot of them are growing up scarred. And, of course, Trump is Hitler — which is to say: The media loves to incite fear, hatred, and division.
I haven’t seen a lot of younger people ‘panicking’. Many seem to be partying like it’s 1999, in close contact, with no concern for their own health, nor as to how many they may infect later.
(And as for the old people, as someone else noted: it’s not our first rodeo. Try growing up with your father storing used Clorox bottles full of water in the basement, and your teachers instructing you on hunkering under your school desks with your little butts to the windows.)
I bet the younger generation doesn’t even know what the bollards are for.